Looking back, it’s easy to imagine that life follows a neat, straight line.
Mine never has.
There have been twists I expected, twists I never saw coming, and more than a few times when I wondered if I was completely lost. Yet somehow, when I look back now, I can see that even the detours had something to teach me.
One of those roads has been faith.
I grew up around Catholicism, though my family came from a (mostly) Methodist background. I attended Catholic schools from fourth through eleventh grade, including an all-girls school that shaped the way I thought about education, womanhood, and faith. Religion was simply part of the landscape of my childhood.
But being around faith isn’t the same as making it your own.
Like many people, I reached a point where I had questions. I explored other traditions. I spent time in Protestant churches, in Catholic churches, and for a while I was even drawn toward Wicca. Looking back, I don’t regret asking those questions. Every season taught me something—not just about faith, but about people, about myself, and about the ways we all try to make sense of the world.
There were times when I stepped away from the Catholic Church.
There were times when I found my way back.
Not because every question had been answered, but because I had changed. My faith wasn’t the same as it had been when I was younger, and neither was I.
Of course, faith isn’t the whole story.
Along the way I became a wife, a mother, a teacher, and eventually an American making a home in Germany. I discovered that books can shape a life just as surely as people can. Some places felt like home almost immediately. Others took years. There were teachers who changed the way I saw the world, students who taught me more than they realized, and countless ordinary moments that only seemed important much later.
The older I get, the less interested I am in having all the answers.
I’m much more interested in paying attention.
That’s really what The Long Way Home is about.
This is a collection of reflective essays about the people, places, books, faith, and everyday experiences that quietly shape who we become. Sometimes I’ll write about marriage. Sometimes about teaching, travel, family, or finding home in unexpected places. Sometimes we’ll simply pause over an ordinary moment and ask what it has to teach us.
I don’t claim to have everything figured out. In fact, one of the most important things I’ve learned is that certainty is often overrated.
But I do think there’s value in looking back from time to time—not to live in the past, but to better understand the road that brought us here.
If anything I write helps you look at your own story a little differently, then this blog will have done exactly what I hope it will.
After all, we’re all finding our way home, one step at a time.
Welcome.
The Long Way Home.. 